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The Vulnerabilities of Absentee and Mail-In Ballots Hans A LEGAL MEMORANDUM No. 268 | JULY 16, 2020 EDWIN MEESE III CENTER FOR LEGAL & JUDICIAL STUDIES Four Stolen Elections: The Vulnerabilities of Absentee and Mail-In Ballots Hans A. von Spakovsky o one disputes the need for absentee or KEY TAKEAWAYS mail-in ballots for people who cannot make it to their neighborhood polling places on Universal absentee or mail-in voting N Election Day, such as because they are sick, physically leaves America’s electoral system vul- disabled, or serving the country abroad, or because nerable to fraud, forgery, coercion, and voter intimidation. they cannot make it to the polls for some other legiti- mate reason. But changing the U.S. election system to no-fault absentee balloting, in which anyone can vote Uncovering instances of voter fraud with a mail-in ballot without a reason, or to mail-only is difficult, and those who commit elections, in which voters no longer have the ability to fraud are often able to get away with- vote in person, is an unwise and dangerous policy that out repercussions. would disenfranchise voters and make fraud far easier. Mail-in ballots are completed and voted outside the Preventing voter fraud is crucial for pro- supervision and control of election officials and out- tecting election integrity, ensuring public side the purview of election observers, destroying the confidence in the election system, and transparency that is a vital hallmark of the democratic maintaining a stable democratic republic. process. The many cases of proven absentee-ballot fraud in The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud This paper, in its entirety, can be found at http://report.heritage.org/lm268 The Heritage Foundation | 214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE | Washington, DC 20002 | (202) 546-4400 | heritage.org Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress. LEGAL MEMORANDUM | No. 268 JULY 16, 2020 | 2 heritage.org Database1 show that mail-in ballots are susceptible to being stolen, altered, forged, and forced. In fact, a 1998 report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement concluded that the “lack of ‘in-person, at-the-polls’ account- ability makes absentee ballots the ‘tool of choice’ for those inclined to commit voter fraud.”2 All states have bans on electioneering in and near polling places. In con- trast, there are no prohibitions on electioneering in voters’ homes.3 This makes voters vulnerable to intimidation and unlawful “assistance,” as well as pressure by candidates, campaign staffers, political party activists, and political consultants—all of whom have a stake in the outcome of the election—to vote in the campaign’s interests, not their own. Thus it also potentially destroys the secrecy of the ballot process, another basic and important hallmark of American elections for more than a century. This type of electioneering is a particular problem in the 27 states that allow “vote harvesting,”4 as well as in the District of Columbia. These juris- dictions expressly allow any third party to pick up a completed absentee ballot from the voter and deliver it to election officials. Twelve of these states “limit the number of ballots an agent or designee may return,” but there is no information on whether that limitation is enforced.5 Vote harvesting is such a common practice in some states that harvesters (or ballot brokers) are paid by campaigns to collect absentee ballots from voters and “even have their own region-specific names. In Florida, they are known as ‘boleteros.’ In Texas, they are called ‘politiqueras.’”6 The differing approaches to the return of absentee ballots can be seen in the contrast between, for instance, North Carolina and California. North Carolina allows (apart from the voter) only “a voter’s near relative or the voter’s verifiable legal guardian” to return an absentee ballot.7 California had a similar law, but amended it in 2016, effective in the 2018 election.8 Prior to the change, only the relatives of a voter or someone living in the same household could return an absentee ballot.9 California eliminated that restriction and now allows a voter to “designate any person to return the ballot” (emphasis added), exposing California residents to intimidation and pressure in their homes by representatives of candidates, campaigns, and political parties.10 Mail-in ballots certainly make illegal vote buying easier since the buyer can ensure that the voter is voting the way he is being paid to vote, some- thing that cannot happen in a polling place. This is illustrated by the 2019 conviction of a city council candidate in Hoboken, New Jersey. Frank Raia was convicted for “orchestrating a widespread scheme” that targeted and bribed low-income residents for their absentee ballots in a 2013 election. LEGAL MEMORANDUM | No. 268 JULY 16, 2020 | 3 heritage.org Sources told a local reporter that “the operation began in 2009, when changes in state law eased requirements for voting by mail. Prior to that a resident needed to provide a reason why they couldn’t make it to the poll in order to get an absentee ballot.”11 Mail-in elections and absentee ballots also subject the election process and the votes of the public to the problem of ballots being misdirected or not delivered by the Postal Service. According to a Public Interest Legal Foun- dation analysis of reports filed by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) on the 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 elections, more than 28 million mail-in ballots effectively disappeared—their fate is listed as “unknown” by the EAC based on survey data sent to the EAC by state election officials.12 The EAC defines “unknown” as mail-in ballots that “were not returned by the voter, spoiled, returned as undeliverable, or otherwise unable to be tracked by your [state] office.”13 The EAC lists another 2.1 million ballots as “undeliverable,” meaning they were returned by the U.S. Postal Service because the registered voter did not live at the registered address. An example of the risk posed by relying on mail delivery for the import- ant task of making sure that a voter’s ballot gets into the ballot box is illustrated by the April 7, 2020, primary election in Wisconsin. News reports indicated that many voters never received the absentee ballots they had requested, or received them too late. After the election, “3 large tubs of absentee ballots” were discovered in a mail-processing facility: They were apparently never delivered.14 Similarly, “thousands of residents who requested an absentee ballot” for the June 2, 2020, primary election in the District of Columbia never received their requested absentee bal- lots.15 As a result, there were long lines at polling places when those voters showed up at the radically reduced number of polling places opened by the DC government. According to the EAC reports, another 1.3 million completed absentee or mail-in ballots were rejected by election officials in the last four federal elections for not being in compliance with relevant state rules and regula- tions, including signature mismatches.16 This illustrates one of the other key drawbacks of absentee ballots. Unlike a polling place where there are election officials who can answer questions or resolve any problems an indi- vidual may have with her registration or other issues, there is no election supervisor in a voter’s home who can ensure that all of the information required by state law for an absentee ballot has been properly completed by the voter. This leads directly to the disenfranchisement of otherwise eligible voters. States, such as Washington and Oregon, that have mail-only elections LEGAL MEMORANDUM | No. 268 JULY 16, 2020 | 4 heritage.org have similar problems. According to the EAC reports on the past four federal elections, Oregon listed more than 170,000 ballots as “undeliverable,” almost 29,000 ballots as “rejected,” and 871,737 ballots as “unknown.” Furthermore, in a survey of voters in just one Oregon county by an assistant professor at Portland State University, 5 percent of voters admitted that “other people marked their ballots, and 2.4% said other people signed their ballot enve- lopes.”17 The professor suspected that “the real number is higher, because people are reluctant to admit being party to a crime,” but if that percentage held for the rest of the state, it would mean tens of thousands of illegal ballots.18 The professor told the Los Angeles Times that she did not have much faith in the process since she is able to forge her husband’s signature perfectly.19 The experience of a Heritage Foundation colleague shows the type of problems that occur in a state such as Washington with mail-only elections when voter registration rolls are inaccurate. She grew up in King County, but has not lived in the state since 2012, and therefore is not an eligible voter in Washington. One of her sisters left Washington 10 years ago, registered in another state, and is also not eligible to vote in Washington. Another sister, who has Downs syndrome, has never been registered to vote by her family. Yet every time there is an election, ballots are mailed to her parents’ home for all three sisters. Those ballots could easily be completed and returned by the parents, or forwarded to the sisters who live out of state to be completed and returned, and election officials would be none the wiser. The colleague’s father is particularly concerned that his daughter with Downs syndrome was somehow registered without his knowledge: “Someone could easily take advantage of her and cast a vote under her name.” In fact, in the 2018 election, the EAC reports that King County had more than 13,000 ballots listed as “undeliverable,” illustrating the unreliability of its voter registration list, while the fate of 352,624 ballots was listed as “unknown.”20 That “unknown” category no doubt includes the ballots the county mistakenly mailed to the three sisters.
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